29 August 2010

"To a Foulkes..."

Soon, Holyrood will be entering its four-year moment of flux. The people will cast their ballots, old faces will be politely but firmly shown the door. New sprightly souls will whizz through the Parliament's portals, all green sap. Some tribunes, however, are pre-empting the Scottish public's verdicts and have already decided to scuttle on their merry ways, to institutions and pastimes new. Just this week, former First Minister Jack McConnell has confirmed that he too is leaving us. The departures of a few choice individuals merit memorialisation in heroic verse. We've already said our farewells to Baillie Bill Aitken. With the intercession of Calliope, I was able to coax the wraith of Robert Burns into composing this piece in honour of every cybernat's favourite Labour representative in Holyrood, Lord George Foulkes. Inspiration is cruelly lacking in the afterlife - something to do with all of the white, white clouds, I imagine - so our national poet sneakily ripped off his own earlier work without telling me, disappearing in a puff of ectoplasm before I could lodge my bitter complaints about this scofflaw, sharp poetical practice. It could be worse, I suppose. Burns selected his existentially reflective account of a gambolling, mischief-making intruder blighting a lady's otherwise fetching hat in To A Louse as the model for his Foulksian encomium. Heaven knows what could have warranted the comparison...

The Dey of Auld Reeks, when afraid of his cheeks,A messenger sent to our Court, sir,As he knew in our State that the women had weight,He chose one well hung for the sport, sir;He searched the Divan, till he found out a man,Whose b--l--ks were heavy and hairy,And he lately came o'er, from auld Caledons shore,As the great Plenipotentiary.

When to England he came, with his p-----k in a flame,He shewed it his hostess on landing,Who spread its renown thro' all parts of the town,As a pintle past all understanding;So much there was said of its snout and its head,That they called it the great Janissary,Not a lady could sleep, till she got a sly peep,At the great Plenipotentiary,

As he rode in the coach, how the whores did approach,And stared, as if stretched on a tenter,He drew every eye of the dames that pass by,Like the sun to its wonderful centre;As he passed thro' the town not a window was down,And the maids hurried out to the area,The children cried, "Look, there's the man with the cock,That's the great Plenipotentiary."

“I think of him more of a long nosed, elegantly coiffed Afghan pawing through his leather bound library whilst disdainfully inhaling a puddle of Armagnac in an immense crystal snifter. If he can also lift his leg over his shoulder and lick his balls...” ~ Conan the Librarian™

“... the erudite and loquacious Peat Worrier who never knowingly avoids a prolix circumlocution.” ~Love and Garbage

“My initial mind picture was of a scanty bikini'd individual wallowing in a bath tub of peat. However I've since learned to warm to him, and like peat he's slow to draw but quick to heat...” ~Crinkly & Ragged Arsed Philosophers

Definition: "to worry peat" v.

"Peat worrying" is the little known or understood process for the extraction of cultural peat, practised primarily in the Lowlands of Scotland by aspirant urban rustics. Primary implements by means of which successful "worrying" is achieved include the traditional oxter-flaughter but also the sharp-edged kailyard and the innovative skirlie stramasher.